


It's Not Love

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah, Spike always was a romantic,” Angel said with scorn. He glanced at Buffy. “It’s not love,” he pointed out. Buffy and Angel spy on Spike and Drusilla out and about. Set in season 2, after "Lie To Me".</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Love

  
    It was a late – or extremely early – patrol. Buffy had decided to go to bed early and patrol at three AM, to take out any vamps that tried to suss out her usual schedule and avoid her. Angel had joined her about an hour after she’d started, and they’d chased a particularly wily vamp up to the very top level of a parking garage. They’d been after him for a long time, and he’d committed a particularly brutal murder, so Buffy didn’t want to leave him to kill again. The sky was starting to pale with the false dawn before they had him cornered. “Gotcha!” Buffy shouted. The vamp turned, panicked, and ran right into Angel.

    “I don’t think so,” Angel snarled.

    The vampire made a small sound of terror, and quickly vanished in a puff of dust. Buffy pulled back her stake, panting. “Remind me to take up jogging,” she said. “Ugh!” She bent double, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “That was a long run.”

    “We got him,” Angel said.

    Buffy leaned out over the top of the concrete wall to catch her breath. Movement down below in the park across the street drew her eye. Who was out and about just at dawn? It wasn’t anyone walking a dog or jogging or clearly heading to work. The platinum blond head of one of the figures led her to suspect who it was, but just to make sure, she called Angel over. “Can you see them clearly?” she asked.

    He glanced down with his vampiric senses and nodded. “Spike and Drusilla.” He glanced up at the sky. “The sun will be up in a minute or two. There’s an entrance to the tunnels in that park, they’d be gone by the time we got down there. I need to go.” He turned to head back down.

    Buffy’s mouth quirked in annoyance – it would have been nice to have another go at offing Spike, though she would have preferred more preparation. She was about to follow Angel when the stilted movement of the figures below confused her. “Angel, wait a minute,” she said. “What are they doing? Is that a magic ritual or something?”

    Angel came back and looked over the concrete. He quickly buried a grin. “It’s called _a waltz_.”

    Buffy felt like an idiot for not realizing it immediately. But it still seemed off for a vampire. “Why are they doing that?”

    “Drusilla’s probably hearing music,” Angel said quietly. “She’s completely mad.”

    “And he’s just indulging her?”

    Angel shrugged. “Why not?”

    “It just seems... kind for a vampire. To indulge someone ill. Even another vampire.” She’d been struck with Spike’s devotion to Drusilla before now, but that was only when she was in danger, and that could have been selfish. He might have needed her for something Buffy wasn’t privy to. This was different. This was just a glimpse of their daily life. As they watched the distant figures parted in a romantic flourish, coming back into each other’s arms with a soft desperation that Buffy found herself envying. Angel, as much as she loved him, wasn’t much for displays of affection. “He treats her so tenderly,” she mused.

    “Yeah, Spike always was a romantic,” Angel said with scorn. He glanced at her. “It’s not love,” he pointed out.

    The two vampires below had just shared a romantic kiss, and Spike lifted Drusilla up like someone from the icecapades, swooping her and setting her gently on her feet. “He’s sure acting like it is,” Buffy said.

    “Well, he thinks it’s love,” Angel admitted.

    Buffy was confused. “Then what’s the difference?”

    “He doesn’t have a soul.” Angel started to walk away, and Buffy followed him. “You can’t love without a soul.”

    “You never did?”

    “Never. Obsession, yes. Never love.”

    “So, then it’s entirely selfish?” she said, trying to understand. “He loves what she does for him, and when the chips were down, he’d just abandon her.”

    “Oh, no, he’d die for her,” Angel said.

    Buffy blinked. “Tell me again how that’s not love?”

    “It’s coming from a demon,” Angel said. “It couldn’t possibly be love.”

    Buffy felt suddenly insecure. “You’ve demon in you,” she said.

    “Yes,” he admitted. “And it never loved a single soul. Not even my own.”

    Buffy frowned. She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. Vampires, apart from Angel, were soulless, loveless killing machines, and it was her duty to destroy them without considering the humans they used to be. But she looked back at the two vampires dancing sensuously in the blue pre-dawn glow. Angel was so moody, so distant, so hard to reach. She almost envied Drusilla Spike’s sensual display.

    “It sure looks like love to me,” she whispered.

  
  



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